Impressions from Syria at the beginning of its reconstruction

On the day Ajet flights from Ankara were to begin, I wanted to be among the passengers of this first flight, also in order to honor an invitation I had received earlier. This flight, planned for last Tuesday, was unfortunately postponed to a later date because technical procedures had not been completed. Since we had once set our intention to travel and the hosts were insistent, if not by air then by land, we said bismillah and set out the same day on the familiar roads once more.

We reached the Kilis-Öncüpınar border gate toward the evening of the same day. The first sight we witnessed at the border gate was the queue formed by people returning permanently from Türkiye with their belongings loaded onto pickup trucks. There may not be a mass return, but a flow continuing regularly every day is evident. Those going are probably those who have taken measures to meet their most basic shelter and subsistence needs at their destinations. Not everyone is so fortunate, of course. Right across from Kilis, beginning at Azaz and continuing to Aleppo, Hama, Homs, and all the way to Damascus, you proceed through cities that have been reduced to ruins by tank and artillery fire, aircraft bombardment, and rockets.

These cities, with no sign of life left, are the plain, sun-like reasons why the people we have hosted in our country for years came. What had those who did this to the cities not done, what would they not have done, to the people inside them? Was not all that they did aimed precisely at those people? What lives were lived among the streets of the cities turned to ghosts, what events, what friendships, what joys, what weddings. What these cities have witnessed, what human states they have displayed and made famous. With what kind of mercilessness, at what level of savagery was each person, each a separate world, a separate humanity, thrown one by one into these mass killing fields?

Meanwhile, in Türkiye we are beating water in a mortar over whether Bashar's name is actually Esed or Esat. My Jordanian friend accompanying me on the road, who has an incredible memory and knowledge, gives me an interesting piece of information. He says the real name of the person we know as Hafez al-Assad was Hafez Sulayman al-Wahsh. In the days of unity between Egypt and Syria, Hafez Sulayman al-Wahsh, a pilot in the Syrian army, somehow met Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt. When he gave his name, Nasser, to pay him a compliment, said that his name should not be Wahsh but Assad. From that day on, the Wahsh family entered the stage of history as an Assad who had received the hand of another Arab dictator. However much you think of the name as "the happiest" (Esat) or Lion, the savagery (wahsh) the family inflicted on Syria in 54 years is fully in keeping with its concealed name.

Will these cities, in which, through a savagery of a rarely witnessed level for humanity, not one stone was left upon another and not a head left on any shoulder, ever stand up again? If they do, will they regain their former vitality? Will the ruins in these cities be fully cleared of rubble and new cities built in their place, or will they be left as they are as city cemeteries and new ones built elsewhere? Clearing the rubble is a separate expense, a separate burden. For a moment my mind goes to a practical idea. It is possible to have the rubble cleared by contractors who know the work, in exchange for the recyclable scrap in it, such as iron, wood, and aluminum, that is worth money. A Syrian tribal chief accompanying us reacted to this idea with "Would they ever leave this to you, man?" "Assad's shabbiha sold the rubble of the very cities they bombed, burned, and destroyed to subcontractors. Whatever was useful in it, they stole too, like grave robbers."

After the revolution in Syria, an incredible sense of relief, of ease, is immediately felt among people. Despite the four and a half months that have passed, people still cannot believe what they have lived through. Those who say this is a miracle of God see it as a blessing for which they could never give enough thanks. Of course, alongside this, one also observes this people, unaccustomed to so much freedom, gradually striving to adapt to the newly forming order and to become part of it.

The Syrian people are normally a very hardworking, intelligent, and civilized people. In Damascus, which for centuries was the center of Islamic civilization, knowledge, culture, art, and literature are almost impatient to fulfill their role again as the strongest cradle of civilization. But after a century-long period of occupation and despotism, there is still a long way to go before it can fulfill this role. First of all, the most basic reconstruction activity must take place. A destroyed, suppressed country must be rebuilt, and a people deported from their homes must find their place.

The leaders of the revolution, Ahmed al-Sharaa and his team, are trying to manage the transition period with an extremely mature, wise approach. But not all of those they govern have the same understanding of wisdom. There is a demand for revenge, or at least for the realization of justice, against Assad and his remnants, who for 54 years carried out a genocide against their own people in the country.

On the other hand, there is a prophetic method of building a new and strong society with wisdom, and al-Sharaa is firmly committed to this method. Thereby he is trying to ensure that the transition takes place without revanchist vengeful movements in society. Whoever remembers what Assad and his Shabbiha did cannot help but be filled with anger toward them, but al-Sharaa and his team know very well that building the future is not possible without controlling these feelings. But control cannot be fully achieved without a minimum degree of justice either.

There are also those from the old regime's people who approach as if nothing had happened, saying "the king is dead, long live the new king." In the name of not excluding anyone, the expectation that they too not be elevated to positions they do not deserve is frequently voiced. The balance between these expectations forms the most important test areas of the political leadership of al-Sharaa and his government. On the one hand, the feelings of revenge accumulated over years of oppression, repression, torture, and genocide that are truly hard to forget; on the other, a whole people who at that time cooperated with the regime, or cooperated with them at one level or another, turned a blind eye to their oppression, or lent a hand somewhere. In the end these two peoples will live together and will continue to build the integrity of Syria together. Everyone knows and sees that this is not easy.

Truly, were it not for the power and philosophy of the faith and motivation guiding al-Sharaa and his team, a vengeful atmosphere in which blood overwhelms the body would long since have occurred. But the morality of the revolutionaries had, from the very first moment, set the bar at the Prophet's Sunnah of conquest. Revolutionary Islamic morality is not vengeful but just and forgiving. Of course, this forgiveness will never cover some.

Let us continue writing our Syria impressions, God willing.